HT considering limiting/restricting.....

[Seeker]

Bad idea, real bad.

How could we switch to the low country then?

And all this talk of spying? That the sort of rubbish that "wars", "countries" and "winning the war" lead to.

Why on earth ressurect on of AW's really bad points?

Country loyalty? Don't make me laugh.

[Yippee38]

rotation must be submited as a request and then granted based on other squads rotating in the other direction

I would forsee a large squad wanting to change countries, but having to wait weeks for several other squads (or one other big squad) to want to change to balance the equation.  It would become a thing where you request a change and it takes so long, that the reason for the change has gone.  Nobody would change.  IMHO, if this was put in place, they might as well forbid movement.  The result would be the same.

The last line above is the key. It is generally better to influence behavior than it is to legislate it. The former is voluntary, while the latter is forced and therefore a possible source of contention and resentment. The key is to find the right "carrot" to use. You don't want to mess with HTC's business model, so offering any kind of discount for staying with one country is out of the question. On the otherhand, perhaps some kind of military rank system within a country, such as WWIIOL uses, would provide a subtle, pychological incentive. Maybe send out tour ribbons for staying with the same country for an entire tour, too. These are fairly inexpensive, and would be kind of cool to wear to the Con. It would bring an element of role-playing to the game. Some would not care, but if even 50% do it would bring a favorable shift to the side-balance effort.

I think a better disinsentive to changing sides would be perk point penalties.  When a person changes sides they only get 75% perk points for the next week.  The penalties should stack, so if you change sides twice in one night, you would then only be getting about 56% of the normal perk points.  I thought I remembered reading somewhere that you had to be on a country for 12 hours before the reset to get the points.  If that's not the rule, then put that in.

The benefit of this would be that the people who are jumping ship and going to the biggest country to get the reset, would be shooting themselves in the foot.  The reset means bragging rights, but it also means perk points.  Reduce those perk points and you reduce the incentive.  The types of people who switch to the outnumbered country are generally the people who couldn't care less about perk points, so it would not be a disincentive to them.

As far as squads changing sides, if a squad is so lame that they change sides just to get on the side with the numbers, then they probably care about their rank/scores.  Rank/Score squads based upon country.  If a squad flies for half the tour with Bish, the switches to Rooks, their scores while with each country would only apply to their rank/score with that country.   Their rank in each country would be half of what it would be if they had stayed in one country because they are only in that country for half of the tour.  Again, the squads that don't care about rank, aren't going to be the squads switching sides to join the country with the numbers.

[Wlfgng]

so let's say you 'balance' the countries at the beginning of a tour...

you still have flux depending on who is logged in at a given time.

[llbm_MOL]

Bad idea HT. Hope ya don't doit. I still say if you want people to flock to the country with lowest numbers you have to use a carrot, not a stick. Give them perks or perk planes without the perk cost or a higher score per kill or ANYTHING but more rules and regulations!


LLB OUTSKI!!!!!!!!!!